Fire Ushiten Iwaoi

Reconciliation

Disclaimer: all characters in this story are the property of Haruichi Furudate. I own nothing but the plot. The art does not belong to me. Author-chan out!

Ushijima's POV

The next several days were hell on earth.

Tendou and Oikawa woke up. Tendou and Ushijima had a happy reunion. Then Oikawa asked where Iwaizumi was.

"Oikawa-san..."

Tooru froze. He turned 360 degrees, looking in all directions. His eyes met Wakatoshi's. His mouth opened. "What? He'll come back. He said he would come back."

Ushijima put a hand on his shoulder. "Oikawa-san… A woman was pinned under a wooden beam that supported the ceiling on the first floor. Iwaizumi-san and I lifted it off her, but her leg was broken. There was no time to get help. The whole building was about to collapse. He told me to take her and run. He held up the roof long enough for us to get out."

"No. No. He promised he would come back." Tears streamed down his face. "Hajime never breaks his promises."

"Oikawa-san…"

"NO!" Tooru screamed, throwing Wakatoshi's hand away. "NO! Why didn't you stay?! Why didn't you help him?! Why did you let him hold up the roof instead of you?!"

"He wanted to. He said 'let me be better at something for once. Let me take this challenge. I'll win this.' I did not mean to leave him."

Satori spoke up. "Wakatoshi tried to climb into the wreckage to look for Iwaizumi-san. Everything was still on fire. The firefighters had to knock him out to stop him."

It was like all the fight ran out of Oikawa. He just collapsed bonelessly onto the ground. His legs folded underneath him. He sat still.

"They have not found him," Ushijima said. "But I must warn you, they said there is a very small chance he is still alive. A building on fire fell on him, Oikawa-san. He probably did not make it."

There was no more news for quite some time.

Night turned into early morning.

Tendou, Ushijima, and Oikawa's breathing and sight cleared.

Firefighters swarmed like ants around the scene, putting out the fire and searching for survivors. They didn't expect to find any, as Ushijima discovered from eavesdropping.

The sun rose as the firefighters declared Iwaizumi Hajime and anyone else trapped in the fire presumed dead.

Oikawa started to shake like he was having a seizure. He just sat there and shook uncontrollably. He began to sob.

"Hajime," he cried. "You promised. You promised me. You promised you would come back."

Time passed.

Finally, after far too long, rescuers found a burned hand still holding up a wooden beam, buried deep inside the wreckage. They pulled out a limp body that was burned and scarred past almost all recognition. 

Almost.

Oikawa knew it immediately.

Iwaizumi was taken to the emergency room and given surgery. They waited for hours, not knowing if he was dead or alive.

After too long, visitors were allowed to see him. 

"He's in a coma and drugged to his teeth," a small blonde nurse told them. "Hopefully, he will experience varied states of increasing alertness for the next several weeks. Right now, he is in no state to communicate with anyone. Until that first initial time of alertness, there is no telling when the coma will pass."

"Can he hear us?" Tooru asked.

"There is no way to know for sure. Most likely not."

"Okay. Thank you." Oikawa, Tendou and Ushijima walked to Iwaizumi's room. They hesitated, looking at each other.

"Ladies first," Ushijima offered, a tiny ghost of a smile dancing on his lips as he looked at Oikawa.

Naturally, Tendou walked in. 

Ushijima smiled at his redheaded boyfriend, but Oikawa had eyes only for the lone occupant of the sterile room. The motionless ace of Seijoh lay on the white bed, eyes closed. Bandages covered his entire body, but Tooru could tell he was massively burned. Hot tears came into the setter's eyes like fire. He angrily dashed them away. He moved to Hajime's bedside, ignoring Wakatoshi and Satori.

He gently touched Hajime's bandaged hand. No flicker of movement. Tooru clasped his hand, mindful of the cloth wrappings.

He stayed like that for quite some time.

A week passed. Ushijima and Tendou rented two cheap hotel rooms for the three of them, the rest of their vacation long forgotten. Oikawa stayed with them.

He visited Hajime every day. On the seventh day, he just stared at the body on the bed.

"Come back," Tooru begged. "Iwa-chan, I love you. You promised you would come back. So why won't you?" Tears soaked into Hajime's bandages. "Why won't you come back?" Tooru pleaded.

On the eighth day, Ushijima, Tendou, and Oikawa went from hell to heaven in a heartbeat.

Iwaizumi was awake. Oikawa ran to his ace.

"Iwa-chan?"

"Hey, Trashykawa." Hajime's voice was low and rough from all the smoke in his lungs. Tooru burst into tears.

"Why are you crying? It would take more than that to get rid of me," Iwaizumi said. Ushijima and Tendou left quietly, giving the other couple some space. Oikawa only cried harder.

"Iwa-chan, you came back... I didn't think you would." Tooru looked at his boyfriend, love and concern in his face.

"I promised I would come back, Tooru. I'll always come back to you."

Tears shone on the setter's face. "Always?"

"Always. No matter what's in my way."

Oikawa smiled through his tears. He looked down, the fragile smile disappearing. "Iwa-chan… I'm so sorry, I should've gotten out earlier, I'm so useless…"

Hajime headbutted his boyfriend. "Stop it! It wasn't your fault, Tooru. You were asleep, you didn't know a fire was starting. And I made the choice to go in there. No one made me. I knew what I was doing."

"Why did you hold the roof up? Ushijima said he offered to do it."

Iwaizumi sighed. "For the longest time, I've felt like we were archenemies. Rival aces of rival schools. And then we lost to Shiratorizawa. To Ushijima. And it all just came out right then. I had to prove I was better." His eyes burned with an odd light. "Did they all get out?"

"I don't know," Oikawa admitted. He called their former rivals back in.

Hajime looked at Wakatoshi urgently. "Did the woman and her baby get out?"

"Yes. You held up the roof long enough for us to escape." All the tension visibly flowed out of the spiky haired male. 

The two aces made eye contact. There was a pause. Iwaizumi broke it. "You know, we're really not that different," he admitted.

"No, we are not... Iwaizumi-kun," Ushijima replied. "We make a good team. In fact, we impressed the fire chief with our actions. He said he'd never seen two people work together like that." He paused.

"In f-fact…" Tendou stared. Ushijima never stuttered. He took a deep breath.

"The fire chief has offered us both full scholarships to the firefighting academy to train as a team."